on books about books

Best Bargain Ever

Just LOOK at what I found today!! A pristine, hardback copy of Anne Fadiman’s Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader. The best part is, it was only $6.99 AND I had just sold a book for which I was paid $7. I am one cent and one gorgeous, glorious book ahead.

Ex Libris is my all-time favourite book about books. I like it so much that I can’t write about it. I’ve tried several times for this blog, and I simply cannot be coherent about my giddy love for Fadiman’s exquisite prose. (Rose City Reader feels the same way about Fadiman’s The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down.) I simply buy multiple copies whenever I see it in a bookstore and give it to fellow bibliophiles for birthdays and holidays.

My first copy of the book was a gift, in fact. One of my students gave it to me at the end of term. I fell head over heels in love with Fadiman, began collecting books about books, bought too many books about books, then began this blog so as to catch up with reading them. I am forever grateful to my student for the gift, and thrilled to be able to say that my students, truly, will always have much to teach me.

I have just reread several of the essays as I made tea and waited for it to steep. Giddy love. Head over heels, giddy love.

Hi Nathalie — Great to meet another Anne Fadiman lover! Ex Libris is possibly my favorite book about books (then again, that list changes constantly)! Glad Kerry introduced me to your blog! Love your comments on books/reading (I’m the one who gave her Fadiman’s other book of essays). Anyhow, nice to meet you. (I’m one of those recovering academics who has now, for no apparent reason, turned her interest toward birds.)
all best,
Julia.